EA is looking at putting in-game ads in AAA games — 'We'll be very thoughtful as we move into that,' says CEO

EA CEO Andrew Wilson confirmed the company is considering putting ads in traditional AAA games — titles that players purchase up-front for around $70 apiece. In the Q&A part of EA’s latest earnings call, Eric Sheridan from Goldman Sachs asked Wilson about dynamic ad insertion in traditional AAA games. Wilson said, “…Advertising has an opportunity to be a meaningful driver of growth for us.” He then continued, “…we have teams internally in the company right now looking at how we do very thoughtful implementations inside of our game experiences.”

notannpc,

This is, once again, a crossroads. Either you buy their ad riddled game and reward this shit behavior or you stop buying EA games until it is removed. There are no other choices.

RecluseRamble,

Of course there is another choice: you can continue to not buy their crap regardless of what they do.

notannpc,

Very true. I can’t even remember the last time EA made a game that was actually worth playing.

BuckenBerry,

The problem is the general public doesn’t care and will probably continue to but EAs game’s.

nanoUFO,
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

EA will do anything but making good complete experiences.

Aurenkin,

Thoughtful about squeezing more money out. Didn’t they already do this in one of the older battlefield games, I think it was 2142?

Brunbrun6766,
@Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f02bc5ab-c374-4d7b-9da7-aaf9f6be787d.jpeg

They’ve tried this several times

LuckyBoy,

They already have ads on games, fifa has ads. Yeah every stadium in the world haves it but it doesnt mean they had tô put them there. And from time to time they launch kits like ‘Nike whatever’ and last year the Ted Lasso promo.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, they can make their own non-sponsored ads kind of like how GTA does if they want it to feel similar.

pancakes,
@pancakes@sh.itjust.works avatar

Many words come to mind when i think of EA and “thoughtful” is an antonym of most of them.

alphafalcon,

Oh, they’re putting a lot of thought into it I’m sure.

That thought being “Money, Money, Money, Profit, Profit” of course.

korny,

“Fuck yeah, I really love ads and can’t wait to support EA by buying every product I see in my $70 AAA game. Thanks EA!” - EA execs ideal customer

Whatevster,
@Whatevster@lemmy.today avatar

And I am looking at never purchasing another EA game in my lifetime.

forgotaboutlaye,

And you won’t be missing much.

toxicbubble,

ever played a mobile game and thought, “gosh, I wish they would put ads in every game”

argh_another_username,

Unpopular opinion: I wouldn’t mind some ads in games like GTA, Need for Speed or Watchdogs. You’re driving and there’s a real ad in a billboard or in the radio station you’re listening.

xkforce,

Dont give them ideas.

xan1242,

It’s already been done. Black Box’s NFS Carbon until Undercover all have ad clients built in that did that exact thing (displaying real ads on billboards).

Luckily it doesn’t work but if someone were to buy the domain it could be dangerous.

Xenon,

Either that, or, you know, they could have witty, thoughtfully handcrafted ingame ads adding to the atmosphere, parodying the real world.

argh_another_username,

But this GTA already has, no?

normalexit,

They do, and it works because it is poking fun of the corporate hellscape we live in, which is whimsical. If they become real ads it will make the games less fun to play.

VR makes it even creepier with eye and head tracking. Not only will they present tailored ads, they will know which ones draw your gaze.

Scurouno,

“Its in the game!”… Ads, that is.

CosmicCleric, (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Fellow gamers, now is the time to push back on this crap. If you don’t do it now, you’ll live with this forever. They tried doing this in past generations as well, and failed.

Spread the word, tell others. Be vocal! Advocate for this not happening.

And if someone tells you that this isn’t preventable, tell them not to be cynical. Remind them of the other positive changes we were able to have happen recently in gaming, and that in the past when they tried this, the pushback was successful in keeping the gaming companies from doing so.

And remember, some of those you would try to convince are probably astroturfers/bots.

(lemmy.world/comment/9976907) (lemmy.world/comment/9977246)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.en

haui_lemmy,

The review bombings have helped before. Probably everyone has an ea game in their library. Lets give it a go.

narc0tic_bird,

Or just vote with your wallet.

haui_lemmy,

Vote with your wallet has no impact whatsoever. It assumes people around you were informed, had similar opinions and the discipline you have. Not saying buy their games or stop voting but experience shows that its not enough for this particular problem.

taladar,

It has all the impact, the problem is basically low voter turnout, not the method itself.

haui_lemmy,

Not at all. Voting means going to a voting booth or mailing your vote. What you are asking is that people go against their impulses and overpower tons of marketing efforts and in many cases dark patterns that keep people addicted.

Declaring them as equal shows lack of understanding of how advanced marketing is today. They literally employ psychologists to influence people.

narc0tic_bird,

We’re talking about an entertainment product here though, not who’s going to be the next president. Voting with your wallet always works for yourself in this case. Don’t buy the ad-infested game = you don’t get an ad-invested game. Simple as that.

Sure, if many people follow and nobody buys their ad-infested games, they’ll change it up. But even if they don’t, you still benefit by having “voted” yourself.

haui_lemmy,

As much as I understand this, human nature ist much different. The vast majority of people doesnt care about this, doesnt know about this or doesnt prioritize it.

Think the mother/father who works full time and has to handle parenthood in their off time. It not like they have the time to stay on top of gaming trends. They will probably scan the game for violence if at all.

Do you think the manority of twitch and youtube viewers are kids for nothing? People are used to this and they dont mind.

Your logic with the entertainmend product also has nothing to do with predatory marketing and dark patterns. They’re illegal in some states for a reason.

taladar,

All those same marketing techniques are also employed with actual elections.

My point was that “voting with your wallet” works, it is not a flaw in the method, it is a flaw in the low number of people employing it that it achieves so little. It is inherently no worse than all the other things you could do that you can’t convince anyone else to join you in when protesting company’s behavior. In fact I would go so far as to say that convincing yourself that you did something and then still buying their product is actually just giving in to those very same dark patterns you mention.

haui_lemmy,

No. It is shifting blame to the customer. This works in the company‘s favor. By now this is a really old trick and it still works.

Yes, psychology is used in voting ads but you also have existing games that already have people hooked to a series. Hype is much more powerful than it is in gaming.

Also, the vast majority of buyers is kids and their overworked parents who have zero time to also be highly informes about the newest schemes of gaming companies.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

The review bombings have helped before. Probably everyone has an ea game in their library. Lets give it a go.

Or just vote with your wallet.

Or both.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.en

warm,

The masses will buy any game thats marketed to them enough. It's how we got into this mess in the first place.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

The masses will buy any game thats marketed to them enough. It’s how we got into this mess in the first place.

Well that’s true to some extent, but there has been past attempts at this, and they have been pushed back successfully, even with those ‘masses’ being there in previous generations.

Also recent victories show that even in today’s environment, positive change can be effected.

Try not to be cynical. If we lose, we lose, but at least we can look at ourselves in the mirror the next day.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.en

warm,

If they are fullscreen ads that disrupt, then yeah pushback is expected. But they wont do this, they will slip them in slowly and people wont generally care.

Pushback from gamers only usually happens when its something like losing the ability to play the game - see recent helldivers controversy.

There should have been a pushback on microtransactions from the start, but people just said "well you dont have to buy them" and here we are.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

If they are fullscreen ads that disrupt, then yeah pushback is expected. But they wont do this, they will slip them in slowly and people wont generally care.

Pushback from gamers only usually happens when its something like losing the ability to play the game - see recent helldivers controversy.

There should have been a pushback on microtransactions from the start, but people just said “well you dont have to buy them” and here we are.

That’s not true though. They’ve tried adding ads in games for decades now, and they’ve always been pushed back successfully.

Just, hold. Stay the course. This new generation can do the same thing that previous gens have already proven can be done.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.en

warm,

There's already types of ads in video games. Fortnite is full of them in the way of 'crossovers' and virtual music festivals. Death Stranding had Monster Energy in. There's probably more too, they do it subtly and EA would start with their sports games, selling ads to show on the pitch for example like what they do IRL.

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